Month: February 2017

I tried the Tumblr model and though it may have been good for y’all, I couldn’t keep up with it. The thing I like about this is that it forces a through line. It makes me tell the story of the day, week, what-have-you that I’m focusing on. And it’s better for me.

In his address last Thursday, Bevin praised legislators for passing the right-to-work bill, which bans workplaces from making union membership a condition of employment and allows workers to decline paying union dues while still receiving the benefits of contracts negotiated by that union. Kentucky was the last state in the South to pass such a law, which Bevin said will attract large employers who had been reluctant to consider locating in Kentucky.

And then a hero comes along … 🎶

Responding to a tweet about Bevin’s Volvo comments in his address last week, the official Twitter account of Volvo Car USA replied that “We have never confirmed which locations we considered, but a ‘right to work’ bill was not a requirement.”

Frustrated by the fusillade of tough questions, Trump scanned the room: “Let’s see,” he said, “I want to find a friendly reporter.” Even for a press corps that long ago ceded normalized relations with the White House, it was a gasp-worthy moment. “Are you a friendly reporter?” Trump asked, shamelessly, to a reporter near the front of the pack. “Watch how friendly he is. Go ahead.”
The reporter, Jake Turx, who writes for the ultra-Orthodox Jewish publication Ami, asked about an increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes since Trump’s inauguration. The president was upset—this was not a friendly reporter kind of question! “He said he was gonna ask a very simple, easy question,” the president complained. “And it’s not. It’s not a simple question, not a fair question.” The audacity.

“The name calling from the left is crazy,” said Bryce Youngquist, 34, who works in sales for a tech start-up in Mountain View, Calif., a liberal enclave where admitting you voted for Mr. Trump is a little like saying in the 1950s that you were gay. “They are complaining that Trump calls people names, but they turned into some mean people.”

lol.

This article compares saying you voted for Trump in Mountain View to coming out as gay in the 1950s. Good take https://t.co/ho9jTn7HR5

Blue Vesper is a year old now. Actually, a little more than that. I’m still feeling it out, and anyone who has read any of it, s/o and thank you.

For the past few months, I’ve been doing these aggregate posts full of articles from all over the internet. Those articles were primarily a coping mechanism for me in the wake of the election and inauguration of #45. It’s a cool thing that I’ve enjoyed, but I’ve been rethinking why I started and what is the best way to accomplish that goal.

Today, I started up a Tumblr at flyover.news. Now, instead of a single post at midnight or whenever the hell I have time, I’ll hopefully be shooting stuff out throughout the day. I’m hoping that a more fluid process will help me stay on it a bit better, and make it all come out in times that people can actually read it. If you’ve enjoyed these posts over here, you might like it over there.

I’m also rethinking what the future is of this blog. I’m finding that, while it’s really nice to have my own hosted space to write and such, platform is lacking. That could mean sacrificing autonomy for more ease-of-access and syndication to more people.

So keep this site in your routine. Or add it to your routine. But check out flyover.news, and smash that follow button.

Alas, U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, who was on the same flight, said someone stopped McConnell as he got off the plane and told the Senate majority leader to wait. He didn’t leave through the airport terminal like everyone else, unless he waited for a really long time. (You can maybe do that if you are the Senate majority leader, or if your wife is secretary of transportation, apparently.)

Lame.

So Sunergos decided to stop carrying the LEO Weekly this week, apparently deciding coincidentally (or not) right before a Valentine’s Day issue featuring content of a number of newly married LGBT couples, with one couple featured on the cover.

While we disagree and are disappointed with the coffee business’ decision, we feel it is important to defend its right to carry, or not carry, any publication it chooses. We also want to make sure that the business is not unjustly criticized for dropping us because of this issue, or the beautiful cover.

NO SHADE HERE MOVE ALONG.

Regardless of which or any issue that Sunergos decides is the final straw, it’s a bad look. The fact is that the conservative post-denomenational radical-baptist hipsters are the cornerstone of the local coffee business (which is 💯 wrt quality).

It’s not yet clear how that bill would intersect with Senate Bill 7, which would allow people as young as 18 to carry concealed guns without any permits or training. That bill faces opposition from some law enforcement and might be changed, legislators have said.

Even R’s are fighting to prove just how much more they love gun.

Betsy DeVos

TFW it's finally your stop after you accidentally struck up a conversation with a crazy person on the subway. pic.twitter.com/tgqLPZMG8B

The point of all this was to give a simple rundown of news from the day. But y’all got way more national news than you need. I’ll try to add that as needed but we have enough local and state stuff to go around right now.

for real tho, we all knew it was gonna happen. give money to orgs and get your political organizing pants on, nasties.

While the pace of legislation slows, the Republican Party’s domination of both chambers will ensure their ability to pass a long wish list of policy proposals that have remained stymied for a decade or more. Case in point: The only drama remaining concerning legislation to finally allow charter schools in Kentucky is not whether this will pass, but what specific form it will take.

Hopefully the criminal justice reform will be a silver lining in this. One of the few times when fiscal responsibility and the right thing sort of line up. Turns out locking people up too long and too often is bad and expensive.

The resolution says that Jefferson County Public Schools will resist requests from federal immigration officials to share data or resources — unless compelled by a valid court order — that could help identify students or families who are potentially undocumented.

They did more than Bellarmine University could. It’ s good to send a message of solidarity, and it means a great deal. But, there’s also a need to have the conversation of the real danger of witheld funding. Losing dollars for certain programs could be devestating to the people we’re claiming to be protecting.

House Bill 202 would also give Kentucky’s governor the power to appoint the mayor in case of his or her death, resignation or removal from office. Under the current state law that merged city and county governments, the 26-member Metro Council has 30 days to elect a new mayor by a majority vote.

Intentional or not, Greenberg said, the deaths of three al-Awlaki family members will enhance the al Qaeda narrative. She noted that as part of propaganda efforts, terrorist groups have begun to circulate photographs of children reputedly killed by U.S. forces. Photos of Nawar al-Awlaki alive and dead are already circulating widely in Arab media.

As hominem news, the obama-done-it-too brigade has a case for this one.